


260. black cats

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [174]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 20:36:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8938201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Sarah's daemon settles when she's young. They both know what they are.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who have not kept up on Tumblr: Saegir is a black cat, and Bodashka is a cabbage butterfly. ( _Saegir_ coming from _aegis_ meaning "protection, shield"; _Bodashka_ meaning "god's gift.")
> 
> [warning: platonic daemon touching]

Sarah doesn’t remember naming her daemon. He’s just been Saegir for their whole lives – Saegir a mutt of uncertain breed, grinning at their latest foster parent; Saegir a monkey with clever fingers, stealing wallets and enough food to feed them both; Saegir Sarah’s sword and shield, her protector, the only one who has never abandoned her.

He likes Helena before she does.

When they are making their slow and cautious way towards the apartment – their meeting place with Helena – Saegir’s tail twitches when Sarah pulls the gun out of her holster.

“What,” she says, “you judgin’ me now?”

“Her daemon was a _butterfly_ ,” Saegir says.

“She put a bloody knife in my face.”

“He was tiny. I could’ve eaten him.”

Sarah just huffs, pulls the gun out and checks that it’s loaded. (It is.) Saegir makes an irritable feline sound, rolls his black-furred shoulders and twines himself between Sarah’s legs enough that she stumbles over him.

“ _Stop_ ,” she says, “I’ll shoot you by accident, Saegir, you know I will.”

“I don’t think you’re going to pull the trigger,” Saegir says, green eyes gleaming in the dark.

\--

She does. She pulls the trigger. Eventually.

\--

She has to carry Saegir out of the warehouse. They’re both too shaken – the way Bodashka had fallen out of the air, plummeting like a snowflake. Not like a meteor, or a falling star, or anything celestial. Just a tiny little snowflake, one in a million.

“Saegir,” Sarah says, fingers knotting in the fur over his neck, “he vanished, right? He’s Dust. You saw it.”

Saegir doesn’t say anything. “You _saw_ it,” Sarah says again, desperately.

“Yeah,” Saegir says, voice muted. “I saw.”

\--

He’s lying. But she doesn’t find that out for ages – not until they’re in Rachel’s apartment, and Bodashka is landing on Sarah’s wrists. His feet tickle.

“Did you know,” Helena says, trying to coax Saegir to her outstretched fingertips, “that butterflies drink blood sometimes.” She’s covered in it – blood – and she seems perfectly unconcerned both the fact that she is trying to touch Sarah’s daemon and that her daemon is touching Sarah. Sarah keeps trying to explain it to her, that it’s wrong, that it is the most wrong thing in the world, but Helena and Bodashka won’t listen to her. So here he is, on her wrists, and here is Saegir sending nervous glances Sarah’s way. Like he’s asking for permission.

“Okay,” Sarah says. She’s too drained to say anything else.

“If they are hungry enough,” Helena says.

“Okay.”

Helena looks up from Sarah’s soul on the ground, and looks at Sarah. Her daemon sucks up dried blood from the skin of Sarah’s wrists; Sarah looks at Helena, feeling too much, not feeling enough. Helena leans forward and her fingertips brush against Saegir’s fur, just the tips of it. Sarah can’t help herself: she starts crying.

\--

(“What is it like,” Helena says, “when your soul speaks to you? How does it feel?”

Bodashka lands on Helena’s fingertips and then is gone again. Here and gone again, here and gone.)

\--

In the tent, Saegir curls up on Sarah’s lap and Sarah pets him, fingers combing over old scars and places where bones broke and healed wrong. He is a mess, her black cat, her unlucky soul. She loves him more than anything in the world. He’s purring, the sound a stop-start motor. He’s purring and Bodashka has landed between his ears, wings opening and closing in some sort of time.

Sarah looks up, and looks at Helena: Helena sitting across the tent, hands knitted together in her lap, her soul touching Sarah’s soul touching Sarah. And Helena alone.

Saegir’s purr sputters out; his eyes slit open, luminescent green. “C’mere,” he says. “If you want.”

Helena does.

\--

“Why’d he settle like that?” Sarah says.

Helena holds a single finger up to her lips. “We were hiding,” she says. “Shh.”

Bodashka doesn’t say anything. Bodashka doesn’t say anything at all.

\--

Sarah doesn’t think that’s the reason, though – at least, not all of it. On paper Saegir settled the way he did because it’s unobtrusive; he can blend in anywhere, he can be anything for any con. But she knows what her soul is. She knows just what sort of animal she is, deep down. There’s a reason they call black cats unlucky. Sarah knows. Sarah knows.

She’s walking next to her sister, her bad-luck soul pressing his weight up against her legs. Up above them Bodashka is flying, high and free and lovely; Helena watches him, face open and so beautifully, terribly young.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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